Solar Large-Scale Plants News

PV technology has made significant progress in a short amount of time, leaving solar enthusiasts chuffed. Opponents, on the other hand, brand it as unworkable boondoggle, surviving on the crutches of subsidies and only salving the conscience of the green-minded companies cosseted by political forces. The naysayers do have partial truth in their argument - governments the world over have been supporting the growth of this child with the moniker “solar” with public finances. So, this is the partial truth and the enthusiasts have just enough firepower to say that all energy is, after all, subsidised one way or another – in terms of uncompensated costs of air pollution, congestion and global warming and the consequential irreversible damage these fossil fuels have done to the planet. Perhaps more important and statistically relevant is a report published by the IMF in 2015, which had pegged subsidies to fossil fuels at US$5.3 trillion.

The state enterprise Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) issued at the beginning of the month a tender for 1,200MW of renewable power that can be used to alleviate peak demand issued on the grid, in effect mandating the use of energy storage systems (ESS).

‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JA Solar has supplied its bifacial double-glass PERC modules to a 2.5MW rooftop project at a Goodyear tire manufacturing facility in Shah Alam, Malaysia, the country's largest such project.

Soventix has been singled out by the Nicaraguan government as the potential developer of a major solar project, the latest in a series of PV moves by the Central American state.

The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has issued another tender, seeking PV developers to help develop 1.5GW of solar projects across the country. This latest tender stands as part of the second phase of the Central Public Sector Undertaking (CPSU) program.

A German player has become the owner of a distributed solar pipeline in El Salvador, laying the groundwork for construction to launch later this year.

Global asset management firm Capital Dynamics has purchased an 180MWac / 231MWdc solar project that includes a 90MWac / 360MWh energy storage facility in Boulder City, Nevada for an undisclosed sum.

Natixis and ARCO 3 SpA have closed senior facilities totaling US$69.1 million for a portfolio of solar PV plants in Chile, with up to 70MW of generation capacity.

Amazon revealed plans for a 45MW / 100,000MWh solar farm in Virginia and a 23.2MW / 68,000MWh wind farm in Cork, Ireland on Thursday.

ABO Wind has reached key solar milestones across two of its European target markets, notching up a major sale in Spain and linking its first Hungarian PV project.

With grid capacity a limiting factor, the Middle Eastern country has moved to foster private-to-private solar projects to meet industrial power demand.

As clean energy stakeholders urge Arizona regulators to adopt stronger renewable energy standards, Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) has announced plans to add new solar and wind resources, helping expand the company’s renewable energy portfolio to about 2.5 GW by 2021, which would be enough to power more than half a million Arizona homes.

First Solar announced that its Sun Streams 2 PV solar plant will power new energy-efficient data centers being built by Microsoft in Goodyear and El Mirage, Arizona. The 150-MWac facility, is being developed and constructed by First Solar in Maricopa County and will power the data centers under a 20-year agreement and will be operational in 2021.

Engie has secured a power purchase agreement (PPA) for a solar plant to back the operations of Saudi Arabia’s self-styled largest listed food group.

Arizona’s largest electric utility is gearing up to tender 400MW of renewables before the summer is up.